Nahum M. Sarna (1923–2005)

This book is almost 60 years old, which at first seemed to me to be rather problematic in my reading program about the earliest Israel/Palestine, but Nahum N. Sarna (1923-2005, Brandeis University US) is still well regarded for his pedagogical work in translating the biblical texts to a contemporary audience. In this book he mainly emphasizes the relationship and the striking differences of Genesis with Mesopotamian myths, such as on the creation, the flood, and so on. According to Sarna, show more Genesis was certainly a clear reckoning with those ‘pagan’ stories, and that comes across well. The other components of the Genesis story are also well described and interpreted.
This book is much less up-to-date with regard to the historical background of the biblical stories. For example, Sarna clearly still assumes that the patriarchal stories (Abraham and his descendants) are based on a historical core, and that the extensive Joseph story (the stay in Egypt) is also historically true. He also refers to the classical Hyksos theory, which has now been dismissed by almost all experts. Perhaps there are better introductions that deal with both the substantive relevance and the historical value of the book of Genesis in a much better way. Of course, as a mythical and religious document this Bible-book still appeals to the imagination. show less

This is a commentary on the book of Exodus by the Jewish scholar, Nahum M. Sarna, . Each chapter deals with large literary units rather than the typical verse by verse exegesis. His focuses mostly on historical and cultural backgrounds to the narrative's setting drawing upon a broad knowledge of the ancient Near East. In fact, this was the book's strength. You won't find raw theology here nor will you be left with simple historiography but rather what Sarna calls historiosophy. This would show more make a great companion volume to a more technical commentary like the one written by Carol Meyers (a former student of Sarna) found in the excellent New Cambridge series. show less

Sarna wrote about the book of Genesis based on Jewish texts, which seemed to me to be an appropriate way to view this ancient text, a view not cluttered with Christian commentary.

I enjoyed it and learned a lot. Used it for leading a discussion on the weekly Torah portion.

Some quotes I thought significant:

In the meantime, by utilizing a few items of indirect evidence we may conclude that the cumulative effect of several lines of approach favors a thirteenth-century B.C.E. dating for the Exodus. [p. 9]

In the Biblical view, society as a corporate entity cannot evade responsibility for the follies and evils committed in its name, and it cannot escape the consequences show more thereof. [p.68]

It is worthy of note that a similar kind of literary symmetry and schematized arrangement is employed in the Genesis Creation story and in the opening prose narrative of the Book of Job. In the former, the creative process is laid out as a systematic progression from chaos to cosmos through a series of six successive units of time culminating in a climactic seventh that pertains solely to God.... [p. 77; see his table on pl 76 of The Literary Structure of the Plagues Narrarive.]

Although the celebration of a festival at this season was quite common in the Near East, the Israelite version belongs to a wholly different category from its contemporaries in that the New Year is now grounded neither in nature's renewal nor in mythology,such as an event in the life of a god, but in a historic event---the liberation of a people from national oppression. Such a revolutionary phenomenon is without analogy in the ancient world. [p. 85]

The account of the instructions for building the Tabernacle closes, in Exodus 31:18, with the statement that God "gave Moses the two tablets of the Pact, stone tablets inscribed with the finger of God." This verse forms the connective with and the transition to the episode of the Golden Calf, which led Moses to smash the tablets in response to the apsotasy of the people. It is important to note this because it demonstrates that the Book of Exodus had been deliberately structured so as to place that event between the two part of the Tabernacle narratice---the instructions (Chapters 25 - 31) and their implementation (Chapters 35 - 40). 137 [p. 215] show less